Giovanni Antonini & Il Giardino Armonico - Haydn 2032, Vol. 8: La Roxolana - The Sunday Times

These are invigorating, polished performances of three beguiling middle-period symphonies, the latest instalment in Antonini’s Haydn2032 project. On the basis that these works contain influences from popular and folk music, Antonini partners them with a bizarre anonymous Moravian-influenced Sonata Jucunda from the late 17th century, and — period instruments suit it — with Bartok’s Rumanian Folk Dances, whose naughtily added parts for Renaissance flute and chalumeau (the clarinet’s precursor) he plays himself.